The Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust (YDMT), is celebrating the anniversary of its successful partnership with The Fuelcard Company, one of the UK’s largest commercial fuel card resellers.
Together, these Yorkshire-based organisations are helping to promote ‘greener’ driving through The Fuelcard Company’s ‘EcoPoint’ package; an environmentally-friendly upgrade for its fuel cards to help customers balance their carbon footprint and enjoy greener driving through contributions towards YDMT’s ongoing woodland restoration work across the Yorkshire Dales.
Through EcoPoint, The Fuelcard Company has raised £2,699 for YDMT in 2011, making a vital contribution towards the charity’s woodland restoration project. This vital donation equates to just over one acre of new native woodland being planted in the Dales.
EcoPoint is a handy bolt-on to customers’ existing fuel cards costing just 50p per card, per month and encouraging customers to work towards a sustainable balance between fuel consumption and the environment. In addition to supporting tree planting, customers receive a wide range of other green benefits including advice such as ‘eco-driving’; paperless billing; and a quarterly newsletter keeping them updated on the tree-planting scheme.
Through EcoPoint, The Fuelcard Company will make a continued contribution to the YDMT tree planting scheme over the coming years, a key step towards achieving the Dales Woodland Strategy’s aim to almost double the amount of broadleaved woodland in the Yorkshire Dales National Park to 5,000 hectares by 2020. The long term benefits of planting trees are well documented, including absorbing carbon dioxide, enriching the landscape, providing spaces for people to enjoy, and creating habitats that support hundreds of wildlife species.
David Sharrod, YDMT Director, said:
We are extremely grateful to The Fuelcard Company and its customers for their ongoing support and commitment to both the environment and local treescape. Together we are making a real difference, but there’s still a long way to go, as only around 2.5 percent of the Dales is covered by broadleaf trees, compared with the national average of 4.8 percent. It’s up to all of us to act now to protect our environment for future generations.
Jakes de Kock, Marketing Director at The Fuelcard Company, said:
Every business has a responsibility to play its part in protecting the industry, including those of us within the fleet sector, yet even the most responsible and environmentally aware companies can find it hard striking the right balance between managing the costs of running their fleets and being kind to the environment.
As a business committed to a greener future, we are always looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint and that of our customers; EcoPoint enables our customers to enjoy all the cost-saving benefits of their fuel card as well as being secure in the knowledge they’re playing their part in protecting the environment.
Working closely with partners including the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and the Forestry Commission, YDMT has planted just over one million native broadleaf trees so far. This is made possible thanks to the support of business partners like The Fuelcard Company, as well as donations from individuals.
